Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008 !

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !


2007 has been a good year for Somerton Consulting thanks to your support.

Among all our activities, here are a few of our achievements :


INDUSTRIAL BRANCH

• We have finalized and submitted a market study on GRE (Glass Reinforced epoxy) corrosion resistant pipe systems in the FSU countries.
• A feasibility study and business plan have been made for implementing a GRP (Glass Reinforced Polyester) pipe plant in Donietsk, Ukraine.
• We have assisted a Russian Private Investment Bank for various investments in Western Europe, with ongoing developments.
• We have developped highly focused real estate projects, in the Russian Federation (Sochi) and in other Eastern European countries, in partnership with well established real estate entities.

MEDIA BRANCH

• LUXE.tv, which we had financially structured in 2005, is now being watched by over 30 million people in the World, in four different languages (English, French, German and Russian). The introduction of this channel in all Russian speaking countries has actually been made on last September in Moscow. LUXE.tv is now capitalised at 5 times its initial investment. See www.LUXE.tv.
• We have been working hard on developping a new thematic TV channel with a prestigious brandname, to be located in Monaco, focused on the exciting world of fine living, and foresee its launch on mid 2008.

AVIATION BRANCH

• We have assisted various aviation brokers into finalising the acquisition of different aircraft with a focus this year on very light Business Jets of the last generation (VLJ). These aircraft know a spectacular expansion, with 921 VLJ sold in 2007, a market which is expected to boom with a 96% increase rate over the 5 coming years, to reach 1801 aircraft in 2011.
• We have started a large aviation project, implementing a Feasibility Study for a new projected "fraction time airline" using VLJ aircraft, focused on the Meast, FSU and Western Asia.
  

Boeing projects US$ 70 billion market for Russia and the CIS

Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) will require 1,060 new airplanes worth about $70 billion over the next 20 years, according to The Boeing Company's updated annual forecast for the commercial airplane market.

This year marks the first year that Boeing has published its forecast for the Russia/CIS region as part of the Current Market Outlook.

Airplanes in the Boeing 737 size range will account for 44% of all commercial jetliners delivered to Russian and CIS airlines during the next 20 years, amounting to 470 units valued at $30 billion.

Eleven percent -- or 110 units at a value of $20 billion -- will be twin-aisle airplanes like the Boeing 777 and 787. Forty-three percent will be smaller regional jets while airplanes of the Boeing 747 size or larger will comprise 2% of the market.

The flying public's demand for more point-to-point travel options will also stimulate demand for smaller airplanes. In the past, large airplanes like the 747 were the only airplanes able to fly very long distances. This forced large numbers of passengers to make connections through major hubs to get to their ultimate destinations, through what is called the hub-and-spoke system.

As smaller airplanes such as the Next-Generation 737, the 777 and the 787 are much more fuel efficient thanks to advanced technologies and innovation, they are able to fly longer distances with fewer passengers than a 747 and still remain profitable for the airlines that operate them.

Worldwide, Boeing estimates the fleet will require 28,600 new jets by 2026 worth about $2.8 trillion. The Boeing market forecast is widely regarded as the most comprehensive and respected analysis of the commercial aviation market.

The Project Leaders’ Academy

Somerton Consulting Ltd has established a pro-active cooperation with German company Ricons, based in Murnau, near Munich, to develop on a worldwide basis the Project Leaders’ Academy that Ricons is animating with growing success in such strategic regions as The Russian Federation, Ukraine, The Caspian States and other locations.

Ricons, headed by Mrs Thea Brockmeyer, with offices in Germany, Hungary and Switzerland, Russia and Kazakhstan, South Africa, The USA and Mexico, is an international corporation specialized in project management, risk management, strategic consulting, organizational development, process optimization and corporate management.

The Project Leaders’ Academy is a unique training school concept which associates the teaching and proven skills of experienced project leaders in activity within various industrial or marketing entities, with one or more specific project(s) under development with the trainees’ company(ies). In other words, one may train on a real, live project that his organization is launching.

Training consists of eight modules totalizing 25 hours, typically spread on a eight months period. Intermediate phases between each module provide immediate ground to put in practice what has been teached, so that to gain invaluable experience in project leadership.

The eight modules are:

• Intensive crash course on the basics of project leadership
• Define project and shape project organization
• Establish the role of the project leader (coach of his team)
• Structure complex systems and projects
• Monitor and control the project
• Business planning and WIN monitoring
• Manage opportunities and risks. Negotiate claims
• Organize project conclusion. Knowledge management.

Continuous expansion of the Project Leaders’ Academy is arranged to face the fast developing demand for such a training tool specifically structured within the real life of enterprises, through a worldwide franchising program that Somerton Consulting is elaborating in close association with Ricons.

Please contact us at : contact@somertonconsult.com

Or visit Ricons at : www.ricons.de

Pierre de Fermor.

Google : the library of the World

The library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt was probably the most famous example of a successful storage of a large range of universal scriptures. Founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC during the reign of Pharaoh Ptolemy II, it was partially destroyed by fire on a number of occasions, leading to the irreplaceable loss of many invaluable manuscripts that were establishing and memorising the history of the Antic world.

With a bit of imagination, we could easily figure today a panicked librarian, with his blackened face and half burnt tunic, hurrying out of the flaming building, pressing a ….laptop against his chest (would have such been available at the time!), in a splendid move to save the memory of our past civilisations.

Still, he would only have carried away a minor part of the written treasuries of the old times, as Alexandria, although probably the largest collection of such times, still could not represent more than a minor portion of all the world’s heritage. In addition, his laptop would of course have had a limited memory…And finally, any reconstructed library would still have been again at the only disposal of the happy Diaspora of a few well selected scholars.

Here comes Google, some 2300 years later, a pioneering and most unmatched enterprise to create the ultimate Library of the World, through mastering unsurpassed technologies:

• Searching, gathering, memorising, organising, and storing all the information that is available on the Blue Planet, representing a mass of data that cover the whole known Universe.

• Offering it to the largest variety of the inhabitants of the World, thru all six continents, at instant pace.

• Ascertaining in the same time the due rights for all to protect their own privacies, and deleting at given intervals of time from its huge memory all personal aspects that must not remain there.

Google, here is the memory of the World, intelligent, widely available, fast and efficient, servicing our thirst for knowledge, driving up the boarders of our intelligence.

Pierre de Fermor (With A. de Fermor de Wolkoff).

More freedom in the skies

A pretty important event just took place in Brussels,that could boost the number of air travellers from 50 to 76 million during the next 5 years over the Atlantic Ocean. Following 3 years of tough negotiations, Brussels and Washington have signed a preliminary agreement to liberalise the transatlantic skies, which account for almost 60% of the worldwide air traffic.

This “open sky” agreement will make it possible for European airlines to more easily access to the over protected American market. With such an agreement, for example, British Airways could connect London to Washington, and further continue to Toronto. And Northwest Airlines could fly from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, then proceed to Warsaw.

Still, a final agreement has to be reached on March 22, to be signed by all 27 member states. If ratified, such will be consequential in the history of air transport as it could build as much as 80 000 new employments on both sides of the Atlantic, and would mean for the consumers a global cost economy of Eu 12 billion.

Basically, it will become impossible for the U.S. Authorities to limit to 50%, as it is the case today, a simple participation (with no voting rights) to the equity of national airlines. And reciprocally for European states. Also, European companies will have access to U.S. National commercial programs such as Fly America (reserved to U.S. civil servants in Washington). And past, present or future bilateral agreements arranged between the U.S.A. and third party countries will be extended to holding airlines: With such clause, a company like Lufthansa, now owning Swiss, would benefit from air rights concluded between Switzerland and the U.S.A.

Now, let us hope that participating states will not succumb to the everlasting temptation of discreetly setting up side arrangements that would somehow reinstate local protections, an everlasting sport on both sides of the water…

Pierre de Fermor (with P. Avril).

Davos 2007 : A Russian affair

It started with a question, raised by Ernst & Young CEO James Turley: “Is Russia reliable?“ The answer that he provided in concerto with a number of business participants was a sound “yes!” And these were, among others, E.Nevile Isdell, the chief of Coca-Cola, and Steve Forbes, the CEO of Forbes, who added: “Russia’s future is great because it does have a tradition in math, in sciences, engineering. And if those intellectual resources are free and allowed to flourish, Russia will become a mighty economy in the global economy.”

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, a potential successor to President Putin, could not be more satisfied, later adding that Russia was actually striving to win international respect for itself and for its people, “not by force, but by our behaviour and achievements”.

Behaviour it is, actually. Such is critical for the ongoing maturation of the Russian economy, as all could only agree. And be satisfied that the Russian government has acknowledged this concern, and decidedly encased it as a dominant obligation.

It did not go unnoticed this year that Russia participated to Davos, with a high level delegation led by Medvedev himself, this being a sharp change to previous years where the Russian government simply ignored the event. The message was clear. And simple. Russia, stated Medvedev, will grow by diversifying its economy, improving its infrastructure, and developing a highly skilled workforce. As he noted, the economic output of Russia will surpass for the first time, in 2007, the highest level set by the Soviet Union: “Some say Russia is starting to resemble the Soviet Union… Maybe in part this is the case, but only in one area: This year we will reach the maximum level of GDP reached in the Soviet era!” He added: Russia should surpass Saudi Arabia to become the World’s largest oil producer in the near future, and currently ranks N°1 in gas production and N°4 in electricity.

Medevedv recognized that the Government is to submit soon a bill to the Russian State Duma that sets limits on foreign ownership in strategic industries such as oil, gas, metals and defense. As the past lack of clarity on this issue has certainly spooked potential investors, he added that the bill “will be clear, fully balanced and (will) answer all questions that arise in daily practice, (as) the worst thing in business is opacity and under predictability”. In addition, stated Economic Development and trade Minister German Gref, “there is no real danger of excessive state control of the economy in the future, because if it is in State hands, it will be inefficient, ineffective, and we would find ourselves having to sell it”.

Davos 2007: It certainly was a Russian Affair, among other famous subjects as climatic changes, or the limits of global economy. Russia is a giant that, as stated M. Medvedev “we are not trying to push anyone to love, but we shall not allow anyone to hurt”. Clear enough, Sir!

Pierre de Fermor.